


The Safe and Sound Job

by flutterflap



Category: Leverage
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Eliot on painkillers, F/M, Feels, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Introspection, Multi, OT3, Pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-01-18 00:18:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1407967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flutterflap/pseuds/flutterflap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot Spencer doesn't do hospitals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Update 5/7/14: I made some revisions to this, because writer-brain was unhappy and quibbling about a number of things. Writer-brain has also apparently decided there's another chapter to this story, so that's in the offing, as everyone apparently had more to work out in the aftermath of Eliot winding up in the hospital than I had realized.
> 
> ***
> 
> Eliot's insistence that he "doesn't do hospitals," made my brain say, "heh, yeah you do." This extremely fluffy plot bunny came along, and wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> You could read this as Hardison/Eliot/Parker shippy, or not, as you please. :) Enjoy the fluff!

The Safe and Sound Job

Summary: Eliot Spencer doesn’t do hospitals.

***

_“I blew the whistle on my company. They’ve been dumping toxic waste in poor neighborhoods. I have records…contaminated water supplies, contaminated soil, payoffs to keep it quiet. People will be getting sick soon, if they haven’t already, and these aren’t people who can afford to do anything—not in enough time to make any difference. I want to testify against them, Mr. Ford. I want them to pay, and I want them to stop what they’re doing.”_

_“But?”_

_“They took my son. He’s 10 years old. They said if I don’t recant, they’ll kill him.”_

_“Don’t recant, Ms. Miller.”_

_“Eva. Please.”_

_“Eva. We’ll get your son back for you.”_

***

Danny huddled further back into his corner when the door to the office they’d locked him in opened, spilling yellow light from the hallway onto the floor. He prepared to be taken to another room—they kept moving him around—or for another terrifying conversation with the man who seemed to be in charge and who, for all his smiles and reassurances, didn’t fool Danny in the least. No one had hurt him, not really—but he had seen enough movies to know that it was probably only a matter of time before someone did. These men worked for his mom’s company, and he knew his mom had was going to testify in court that they were dumping toxic waste. They had tried to make him tell her to not to, but Danny had refused, earning himself a sharp cuff on the side of the head. He and his mom used to live in one of the neighborhoods where they were dumping, and some of Danny’s friends still lived there. He didn’t want to help these people. They were bullies, and he wasn’t going to let them bully him. He knew his mom wouldn’t want him to. She was standing up to them, and so would he.

The door opened and closed again quickly, only long enough for one of the security men to shove another person into the room with him. The new person stumbled and fell to his hands and knees, where he remained for a long moment, breathing hard. Then he pushed himself up to kneeling, grunting a little, and shook long hair out of his face. He raised a hand to his ear and said in a low growl, “I’m in.”

Danny stayed where he was, not sure what to make of this new prisoner. The man rose to standing and looked around the room, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the dim light coming in through the window. “Hey,” he said, when he spotted Danny. His voice still sounded like a growl, but it was also gentle. He started towards him. 

Danny couldn’t help it; he shrank from him. The man wasn’t tall, but he was large and powerful-looking, and he moved in a way that made Danny think he was used to fighting. As soon as Danny moved, he stopped and held his hands up in front of him, palms out. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Danny, right?”

Danny stared up at him, his eyes wide, and licked his lips. He nodded. “How--?” he began, then, “Who are you?”

The man came a few steps closer to him and squatted down on his heels, still a safe distance away. “My name’s Eliot,” he said. “I’m a friend of your mom’s. I’m gonna get you out of here.”

***

It took the kid a few moments to process this. Eliot waited patiently, elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together, and used the time to look the kid over. He’d pressed himself back into a corner of the room and made himself as small as he could, making it hard for him to run but also hard for attackers to really get at him. Eliot approved; it was a good instinct. He didn’t seem to be injured, only scared, but keeping his head; that was also good. He was small, a little scrawny, even—not as good, Eliot thought. He’d have trouble keeping up, if it came to running for it. But he was small enough that Eliot could carry him with relative ease, if it came to that.

“How are we going to get out?” the kid finally asked, evidently having decided to trust him. “There are guards everywhere, and everything needs a keycard, even the elevators.”

Eliot grinned. The kid paid attention; he liked that. “I’ve got some friends outside,” he said, tapping his earpiece. “Locks don’t mean a whole lot to them.”

“Especially not in this building,” Hardison said in his ear. “Not that I’m complaining, but seriously, their security is fifth-rate. Maybe sixth.” Pause. Eliot could hear the faint clicking as he typed in the background. “Seventh. Definitely seventh.”

“What about the guards?” Danny asked.

Eliot’s grin widened and turned predatory. He winked. “Guards don’t mean a whole lot to me,” he said.

“There are a lot of guards.”

“I know,” Eliot replied. He leaned in closer, lowered his voice, and said in a conspiratorial tone, “But they’re not very good.” He indicated the bruise rising on his cheek. “They only hit me because I let them.”

The kid still looked skeptical, but after a moment he nodded. Eliot got to his feet and beckoned, positioning the two of them against the wall by the door. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “We’re gonna sit tight here while my friends do what they do, and then we’ll go when they say. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Eliot squatted back down so he could be at eye level with him and took hold of his shoulders. “Once we get out of this room, it’s very important that you stay close, and do exactly as I say, all right?” The kid nodded again, his eyes wide and earnest. Eliot patted his shoulder. “Good man.” Almost as an afterthought, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the spare earpiece he had brought. “Here,” he said. “You can listen in.”

“Hey, Danny,” Nate’s voice said, once he had the earpiece in. “How’re you doing?”

He looked up at Eliot, questioning. “Just talk normal,” Eliot said. “They can hear you, even if you’re whispering.”

“Um,” Danny said. “Okay?”

“You’ll be out of there soon,” Nate said.

“Thanks.” He glanced up at Eliot. “These things are pretty cool.”

“They are, if I do say so,” Hardison’s voice came through, preening. “Designed them myself.”

“Hardison,” Eliot growled. He stood up and put his eye to the crack between the door and the wall, careful not to let his shadow fall across the crack of light along the bottom.

“Hey, kid!” Parker’s greeted him brightly. “Ready to go home to mommy?”

Eliot rolled his eyes. “He’s ten, Parker, not five.”

“Oh. Um. Ready to go home to your girlfriend?”

Danny giggled.

“Parker,” Sophie sighed.

***

“All right, Eliot, you’re a go.”

The electronic lock on the door gave with a barely audible snick. Eliot gestured for Danny to stay where he was, pressed against the wall behind him as he eased the office door open on silent hinges. There were two guards outside; he darted into the hallway and took them both down in seconds, then opened the office door and beckoned Danny outside. The kid hesitated before he stepped around the two unconscious bodies, looking from them to Eliot and back.

“You okay?” Eliot asked.

After a moment, Danny swallowed hard and nodded. After a moment he said, “I never knew my mom had such cool friends. Can you teach me to do that?”

Eliot barked a laugh. “Let’s get outta here first,” he suggested, extending a hand. “Come on.”

***

“Hold up, Eliot, you’ve got a bit of a problem.”

He pressed himself and the kid into a shadowy corner before they reached the lobby to the office building. “Define ‘a bit of a problem.’”

“A lot of guards with guns?”

Eliot growled inarticulately. “Dammit, Hardison, you were supposed to distract them.”

“I did! Just, not, um, enough.”

“Is there another way out?”

“I’ve got an emergency exit, back the way you came, hang a left after the elevators, all the way down to the end, and then go right. There’s two guards over there.”

“Got it.” He grabbed Danny’s hand in a strong grip and jogged for the other exit. The guards had barely seen him before they were both unconscious on the floor, and Eliot took Danny’s hand again before he pushed the door open.

The alarm sounded. Eliot swore.

“Hardison!”

“Shit! Shit, Eliot, I—”

“How many emergency exits?” He cut in.

“Four.”

“Okay, they’ll have to split up.” He pulled Danny into the shelter of the side of the building, listening for running footsteps. “Do they have anyone on the roof?”

“Um.” The sound of keys clicking. “Yes. Just one.”

“Fuck.”

“I’m heading up to the roof,” Parker said.

Eliot pressed deeper into the shadows and listened hard. Over the alarms he could hear shouted orders, running footsteps. The kidnapping had been an amateur job, and the guards were hardly a well-oiled machine, but they would be on them soon enough, and there were enough to overwhelm him—or at least to distract him and take the kid. “Parker, how long?” he asked.

“Ninety seconds.”

He listened again. “We don’t have ninety seconds,” he decided. “We’re gonna run,” The building was in the middle of a large parking lot, empty this late at night—fucking suburbia—and the van was parked off on the other side of a clump of trees at the far end, out of sight, but he had seen enough of their operation to be reasonably sure the sniper wouldn’t have infrared, and would likely not be very skilled. All he had to do was get Danny out of harm’s way, and they could call in the cops.

He turned to the kid. “I’m going to carry you,” he said, directing him to put his arms around Eliot’s shoulders as he lifted him up. “Hold onto me as tight as you can, and keep your head down. Got it?” The kid looked up at him with wide, terrified eyes, but he managed a nod. He locked his legs around Eliot’s waist and held tight to his shoulders. Eliot pushed his head against his chest. “Head down,” he repeated, and then he pushed away from the wall, and ran.

He wove through the pools of shadow in the parking lot—better cover than nothing, though it left a lot to be desired. He heard footsteps behind him, voices shouting, shots fired. Danny flinched against him. The first several shots were from handguns, too far away to be a real threat, but then he heard the distinct report of a long-range sniper rifle: Once, twice. He ran faster through the pools of shadow in the parking lot, the clump of trees and the shelter of the van coming closer.

They were nearly to the trees when the third shot went off. The impact nearly spun him around. Eliot gasped, stumbled a few more steps before going to his knees. He lost his grip on the kid and caught himself on his hands, broken asphalt biting into his palms.

“Eliot!” Danny let go of him, catching himself on his hands as they both went down. He scrambled back towards him, grabbed his hand, and tried to tug him to his feet.

Eliot shook the kid off. “Go!” he shouted. “Get to the trees!” He could taste blood, metallic on his tongue. He touched his side, felt the warm stickiness of blood seeping through his shirt. “Go!” Eliot repeated when Danny hesitated. “Run!”

Eliot waited until the kid had turned away to let himself go all the way down. The asphalt felt cool and rough on his cheek. Better if the sniper thought he was dead, told himself, though he wasn’t sure he could even crawl after the kid. He listened tensely for another shot, but none came. Danny disappeared into the trees.

“Eliot?” Nate’s voice in his ear. “You there?”

“Yeah.” The taste of blood grew stronger in the back of his throat. He coughed, spat out bloody saliva. The bullet must have pierced his lung. He’d be lucky if that was all.

“Okay, hold on. Hardison, we need an ambulance.”

“Already on it.” Hardison’s voice was tense. “Eliot, you okay, man?”

Somehow, Eliot managed a laugh. It dissolved into another fit of coughing, and more blood. “I got shot, Hardison,” he finally managed. “You think I’m okay?”

“Shit, Eliot—”

“Sniper’s down,” Parker’s voice reported. “Eliot?”

“Yeah.” It was getting harder to talk. Pain blossomed in his side, hot and pulsing. Each inhale felt more and more difficult, like he was sucking air through a straw.

“Hold on, Eliot, okay?” Nate’s voice, above him now as well as in his ear. Hands were turning him over. Nate shrugged out of his jacket, balled it up, and pressed it against Eliot’s side. The pressure made him gasp in pain. Someone else held his shoulders. He blinked up at Hardison.

“Eliot, I’m sorry,” Hardison said, and Eliot couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like he might be trying not to cry. “Stay with us, okay?”

He tried to reply, but only managed to make a sound that was uncomfortably close to a whimper. He heard the sound of sirens, distant and coming closer.

“Hear that, Eliot?” Sophie’s voice. She knelt beside Nate. “The ambulance is on its way. You’re going to be fine.”

He wanted to laugh at that. Of course he would be fine. He was always fine. If there was one thing he could do, it was take a punishment; a beating or a bullet, it didn’t make much difference. He wanted to laugh, but he was finding it difficult to get enough air. Dark spots danced in front of his eyes. Beside him, Nate shifted. Pain flared in his side. He felt Hardison’s hands tighten on his shoulders as his body jerked. “Hold on,” he heard him mutter. “Just hold on. They’re almost here.”

Eliot tried to focus on him. He was getting confused, and dimly he knew that wasn’t good, but he couldn’t remember why, or why he couldn’t breathe. Darkness was closing in around him. He let his eyes close. The sirens were close, loud now, and Eliot wished they would stop. The noise and the flashing lights against his eyelids were making his head pound.

“Dammit,” Nate said. “Stay awake, Eliot.” Another explosion of pain in his side, footsteps and more voices above him, more hands on him, more pain, and then he was sinking down into darkness, where the pain and confusion couldn’t follow.

***

The next thing Eliot was aware of was a steady beeping somewhere above him, antiseptic smell and something pressing on his index finger. He could breathe again, though his throat was raw and pain pressed in at the edges each time his lungs expanded, but still—he thought he remembered drowning. Or maybe he had been tortured. He tried to move, managed to twitch his fingers, turn his head.

“Eliot?” The voice was unfamiliar. He cracked heavy eyelids open. A woman in blue scrubs smiled down at him. “Just relax. You’re all right,” she said.

Pretty, Eliot thought vaguely. He let his eyes drift closed again. “Where—?” His mouth felt dry, his tongue thick.

“Providence Portland Hospital,” she replied. “You’re in recovery. We’re getting ready to take you up to a room now.” 

Eliot tried to remember, but everything felt slow, his thoughts sluggish. Portland. Right. He was working a job for Nate. He thought he remembered running, falling. Yes. The sharp sound of gunshots. He definitely remembered—

“Danny,” he mumbled, name and face floating into his consciousness together. He was supposed to be keeping him safe.

“What was that?” the nurse asked. There was a clanking sound, and then a sensation of movement. 

Eliot forced his eyes open again, squinted under bright fluorescent lights that slid by above him. “Danny,” he repeated, with effort. And then, because forming a full sentence was far beyond him right now, simply, “All right?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll find out for you, okay?”

“Okay.” He swallowed hard and licked his lips. “Nate,” he told her. “He knows.”

“All right.” He was wheeled around a corner and into an elevator. The nurse patted his arm. “Try to relax.” He realized he had been clutching the bedclothes in his fist and tried to make his hand relax. The light changed from bright to dim again, and the motion stopped. A moment later the nurse’s face came back into focus. She took his hand and pressed something into it.

“That’s for you to control your morphine,” she told him. “Just press the button if you’re in pain.” She wrapped her hand around his and pressed it for him. “Just like that.” Warmth flowed up his arm and spread through him, washing pain away with it. He felt like he was floating. He let out a breath, closed his eyes and listened to the low murmur of voices above him, too low for him to make out words, but the cadences were familiar: mostly Nate, low and tense; Hardison and Parker, both sounding anxious; Sophie, cool and soothing.

“Eliot.” A rustle of movement beside him. Sophie touched his cheek, her hand cool on his skin. “Danny’s fine. He’s home with his mum.”

He opened his eyes and turned toward her. “Sure?”

“They have a police detail, now. They’re being looked after.” Sophie stroked his forehead, smoothing his hair back. “Everything’s fine. You can rest.”

Reassured, Eliot drifted away.

***

Nate bent over the file in his lap and tried to pretend he wasn’t in a hospital. It wasn’t easy. The smell, the lighting, the steady beeping of monitors pressed against him and threatened to make him panic. Knowing that he wasn’t on a deathbed watch only helped a little. He had added a shot of whiskey to the cup of coffee Sophie had brought him, to her disapproval, of course; but she hadn’t said anything. She knew, he was sure, that he wouldn’t be able to stay here without it. He sipped it now, letting the warmth of alcohol spread through him, unknotting his insides.

A rustle of movement from the bed made him glance up. Eliot stirred, letting out a breath and a faint moan as he came awake.

Nate set his papers an his coffee aside and nudged Sophie, who had dozed off in the chair beside him. She sat up stiffly, rubbing her neck.

“Hey,” Nate said to Eliot. He reached over the bed rail and squeezed his arm. “Hey. How are you feeling?”   
Eliot blinked few times, looked from Nate to Sophie, around the room, and back at them. “Dammit, Nate.” His voice was weak and slurred from sedatives and morphine, but he still managed to growl. “I told you I don’t do hospitals.” 

“Oh, well, next time I’ll let you bleed out in the parking lot,” Nate replied, not quite able to keep the sharpness out of his voice. He was furious, and terrified—and fully aware that it would be next to useless to get into an argument with Eliot about the value of his life when Eliot was pumped so full of drugs he wouldn’t be able to participate, let alone remember.

“I’ve been shot before,” Eliot mumbled. “Didn’t need a hospital.”

Nate clenched his teeth, very nearly growling himself. Sophie placed a placating hand on his arm. She reached over with her other hand and patted Eliot’s cheek.

“Eliot,” she said patiently, “You were in surgery for four hours so they could repair the damage to your lung. You needed a hospital.”

Eliot thought about this for a moment. “Oh,” he said at last. “That bad?”

“That bad,” Sophie replied, gently reproving. “You had us all very worried.”

“Oh,” he repeated. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” She placed her hand over Nate’s on Eliot’s arm and squeezed. “Just let us take care of you, okay?”

He squinted at her for a moment, then shook his head against the pillow, closing his eyes. “‘m okay,” he said. “Don’t—you don’t need to worry about me, Soph.”

Sophie frowned, exchanging a look with Nate. “Eliot.” She reached over and smoothed his hair. “Of course we worry about you.” She looked at Nate again, asking silently, _Does he think we don’t? Does he think we don’t care?_ Nate shook his head almost imperceptibly, the anger leaving his face.

“That’s my job,” Eliot said. “I worry about you.” He opened his eyes again and fixed them both with a surprisingly clear-eyed stare. “I make sure no one gets hurt.”

“Except you,” Nate said, the edge back in his voice.

“Except me,” Eliot agreed, seeming not to notice.

Sophie tightened her grip on Nate’s hand to forestall the impending argument, and then reached for the controller for the morphine drip. Eliot frowned, then sighed as the drug flowed through him, the tension leaving his body. He blinked a few times, his gaze going soft again.

“How’s the kid?” he asked after a moment.

“Safe and sound.” Nate had recovered enough to answer. “And very concerned about you,” he added, with a touch of amusement. “He wanted to stay until you woke up.”

“That’s nice of him.” Eliot closed his eyes. He sounded like he was beginning to drift off again.

“You made quite an impression.”

“Yeah?” Eliot smiled faintly. “I’m good at that.”

“Yes, you are,” Sophie agreed. “Now get some rest.” She pressed the button in his hand to deliver another dose of morphine. He sighed again. “Parker and Hardison will be here when you wake up,” Sophie added. He mumbled an assent. A few moments later was asleep again, his breathing deep and even. 

Nate and Sophie sat in silence, both their hands still resting on Eliot’s arm. Sophie rested her chin on Nate’s shoulder. She rubbed his back with her free hand. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Of course I am.”

“He’s going to be fine, you know.”

“I know,” Nate said. Neither of them moved, and he didn’t take his eyes off Eliot.

***

“I don’t like this,” Parker said. She sat in one of the chairs across from the bed, her arms folded, scowling at Eliot’s sleeping form. “Eliot’s not supposed to get hurt.”

Hardison paused in his pacing to frown at her. “You’ve seen Eliot get hurt lots of times,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but he always gets up!” Parker said. She kicked her feet and scowled. “I don’t like seeing him like this.”

Hardison followed her gaze to the bed, then looked quickly away. It was too jarring to see Eliot look so—small, and vulnerable, surrounded by monitors in a hospital bed, IV lines in his arm and wires snaking out from the neck of his hospital gown. Even the steady beep of the heart monitor, which should have been reassuring, made his stomach knot.

“I know, baby,” Hardison finally sighed. “Me neither.” It was too hard to look at him, because Hardison knew it was his fault; knew that Eliot was damned lucky that the bullet had hit the way it did, because a fraction of an inch in any direction and he would probably be dead, or at least torn up even worse than he already was. 

Parker looked up at him, seemed to read his mind. “It’s not your fault,” she said.

He met her eyes for a moment, then looked away, turning to look out the window. “Yeah,” he said, “It is. I screwed up. That should have been an easy in and out, and I almost got him killed.”

“Well…” Parker looked uncomfortable, then offered, “You didn’t.”

Hardison chuckled humorlessly. “Thanks, baby.”

Parker frowned. Then he held her arms out and gestured to him. “Come here.” Hardison hesitated. She gestured more emphatically. After another moment he went to her, let her pull him down in front of her and lay his head in her lap.

“It’s okay,” she said, patting his head. “He’s going to be fine.” Hardison closed his eyes and wished he could believe her.

***

When Eliot came awake again, there was daylight coming through the window, watery Portland sunlight filtering through a haze of clouds. It took a moment for memory to catch up with him and make sense of the hospital room, and the dull, steady pain that radiated out from his side. He moved experimentally. The dull pain flared, hot and sharp, making him gasp. He sank back against his pillow, closed his eyes and tried to find a way to breathe that didn’t hurt.

“You’re awake!” 

Eliot opened his eyes again to see Parker bounce into his field of vision. She leaned on the bed rail, a manic grin on her face that made Eliot smile in return.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was still raspy, but stronger, and he felt more alert.

After a moment, Hardison appeared over Parker’s shoulder. He smiled tentatively. “Hey, man. How are you feeling?”

Eliot started to shrug, then thought better of it. “Kinda like I been shot,” he said dryly. He smiled, his tone teasing, but Hardison still winced. “Hey.” Eliot lifted his hand, reaching for him. After a moment’s hesitation, Hardison clasped it. “It’s okay.”

“No,” Hardison replied, releasing him. Parker turned toward him, frowning. “It’s really not. You could’ve been killed.”

“Nah.” Eliot grinned. “Takes more than a bullet to get me. Besides, it’s what I do.”

“It’s—” Hardison’s eyebrows climbed almost up to his hairline. “I’m sorry?”

Eliot blinked. “Um. It’s sorta my job. It’s what I do,” he repeated.

Hardison looked at him, incredulous, for a long moment, “Oh, _hell_ no,” he said at last. “You did not just say that. It’s your _job?_ It’s _what you do?_ Get _shot?_ ”

Puzzled, Eliot looked at Parker, who offered him no clues. She was looking at Hardison, frowning hard, seemingly as puzzled as he was. “Hardison,” he began.

“No,” Hardison cut him off. “Uh-uh. That is not _what you do._ Is that all you think you are to us?”

“Um,” Eliot tried again, taken aback by Hardison’s outburst. It _was_ what he did, but it had been a long time since Eliot had thought that busting heads—or getting his busted—was the only thing he had to offer, or the only thing the rest of the team wanted from him. It was why he was willing to put himself in the line of fire for them: not only because he knew he could take it, but also because they saw him, knew him, valued him as more than a thug, more than a killer. They needed his strength and his ruthlessness, but they wanted the rest of him, too. “I—” he began.

“ _No,_ ” Hardison cut him off, his voice climbing. “You beat up the bad guys, and keep the rest of us safe, and you rescue kids, and you can work magic with food that I didn’t even know was possible. So don’t even.” He turned away and paced toward the window, muttering, disgusted, “What you _do._ ”

Eliot watched him, a little stunned, and equal parts embarrassed and pleased. “Wow,” he said at last. Hardison turned back to him, his expression still dark. Eliot grinned, unable to resist teasing him. “I had no idea you cared so much, Hardison.”

Hardison scowled. He opened his mouth to speak, but Parker forestalled him. “That’s enough,” she said. “Stop it.” To Eliot, she said, “He’s right. We need you. And not just to get punched. Or shot.” She bit the inside of her lip, frowning the way she did when she wasn’t sure how to express her feelings. Finally she said, “You take care of us. Don’t pretend it’s not a big deal when you get hurt. It’s a big deal to us.”

Eliot looked away, embarrassed. He knew it, but it was nice to hear it. “Thanks,” he mumbled. And then, “I know. It’s why—” He broke off, plucked at the thin blanket that covered him. “Most of the people I’ve worked with—for—just saw me as the muscle. That’s not how you treated me. Ever.” He looked at each of them in turn. “That’s why I stuck around.” _That’s why I let you in._

For a moment they both held his gaze, then, as one, they all looked away, lapsing into awkward silence. “Do you need anything?” Hardison asked after a moment.

Eliot swallowed hard, licked his chapped lips. “Water?” he asked. Hardison reached across him for the plastic water bottle on the tray beside him, angled the straw toward him and held it so he could drink. He sipped gratefully, the cool water a relief to his dry throat. 

“That’s the other reason I don’t like guns,” Eliot said after he finished drinking.

Hardison set the water bottle where Eliot could reach it. “Why, because they can kill you?”   
“No, because they’re imprecise.” 

Parker snorted, stifling her laugh in her hands, but Hardison just looked horrified.

“ _Imprecise_?” he repeated.

“You want someone dead, there are better ways to do it,” Eliot said. “Guns are just messy.”

Hardison stared at him for a long moment before he finally gave up and laughed, shaking his head. “You are unbelievable, man,” he said. He found Eliot’s hand and squeezed it. “Seriously.”

Eliot grinned, squeezed back. “That’s what I do.”

There was a soft knock at the door. The three of them glanced up to see Danny and his mother standing shyly in the doorway. She stood behind him, her hands on her son’s shoulders, looking tired but relieved. “Nate called and said you could have visitors today,” she said. “Danny couldn’t wait. May we come in?”

“Of course,” Eliot said. Parker and Hardison got up, excusing themselves to go to the hospital cafeteria for coffee. Eva and Danny took their seats. “How are you?” Eliot asked.

Eva gave a shaky laugh. “I think that’s my line,” she said. She blinked several times, pressed her fingers to the inside corners of her eyes. “Thank you,” she said. “You have no idea—” She broke off.

“It’s—” Eliot began, remembered Hardison’s tirade, and instead of protesting that he had just been doing his job, said, “You’re welcome.” He turned his attention to Danny. “How’re you doing, kid?”

The kid grinned. “Better than you,” he said. His mother scowled and hissed, “Danny!” but Eliot just laughed.

“He’s not wrong,” he said to her.

“Does it hurt?” Danny asked.

“Nah,” Eliot lied. He held up his arm to show him the IV. “They’re giving me the good drugs.” Not that hey they were doing him much good, since he hadn’t pressed the button for the drip since he had woken up. Pain was a steady buzz under his skin, radiating out from the wound in his chest, but that was preferable to the fogginess and loss of control that came with the drugs. He would rather have his head clear.

“After you get better, will you show me…?” Danny made a few punching and chopping motions with his hands. Eliot smiled.

“As long as your mom says it’s okay,” he said, catching sight of Eva’s pursed lips.

“I don’t want you fighting,” she said to Danny.

Danny looked at his hands and fidgeted. “The other kids pick on me,” he muttered.

“How about we set some ground rules,” Eliot suggested. “No starting fights. Self-defense only. And we’ll keep to the basics. Sound fair?” His eyes were on Eva as he said it, but he saw Danny’s expression turn hopeful.

“All right,” she relented, and the kid pumped his fist in the air.

Eliot chuckled again. “It’ll be a little while before I can teach you,” he said.

“That’s okay.”

Eva put a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Why don’t you give Eliot his present, and we can let him get some rest?” she suggested.

Eliot raised his eyebrows. “A present?” he asked, genuinely surprised. “You didn’t have to do that.

Danny looked disappointed about leaving, but he also had an air of excitement about him as he dug in his backpack and came up with a slim newspaper-wrapped parcel, which he handed over shyly. “I thought you might get bored,” he explained. He glanced at his mom. “Mr. Ford said you might be in the hospital awhile.”

Curious, Eliot tore the paper to reveal a stack of Batman comics, previously read but obviously having been handled with care. He glanced up to see Danny’s looking at him with anticipation. “Thank you,” he said, stifling a smile so that the kid wouldn’t think he was laughing at him. “I definitely won’t get bored, now that I have these.”

Danny looked pleased. Eva patted his shoulder and began gathering up their things, moving her son toward the door. She paused, though, turned back and said to Eliot in a low voice, “I think there’s part of him that thinks you might be Batman.”

Eliot had to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

“Hey,” Eliot called after them, once he had his voice under control. Danny turned back, looking at him curiously. “You were pretty brave back there,” Eliot told him.

“Me?” Danny looked surprised. “Really?”

“You.” Eliot smiled. “Really.”

“I was scared.”

“And you kept your head, and paid attention, and didn’t panic,” Eliot pointed out. “Pretty brave.”

The kid flushed. “Thanks,” he said. Eva smiled, and mouthed, Thank you, over his head.

***

Parker and Hardison waited in the hallway for Eva and Danny to leave, then reclaimed their seats beside Eliot’s bed. Hardison picked up the comics and flipped through them.

“Oooh, this is a good series,” he said. “You’ll like these. There’s lots of punching.”

“Is there Catwoman?”

Hardison gave him a disdainful look. “No, there’s no Catwoman,” he said.

“Too bad.”

Something in Eliot’s voice got Hardison’s attention, and he turned his focus away from the comics to study him. There were lines of tension around his eyes and mouth, and his breathing seemed shallower than before.

“Hey,” he said. “Maybe you should hit the button for some of that morphine.”

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“Hardison.” It was a warning, growled through clenched teeth, and Hardison fell silent. After a moment Eliot said, “I don’t like it.”

Hardison raised his eyebrows.

“It makes me feel fuzzy.”

Hardison frowned. “And…that’s worse than being in pain?”

“I don’t like it,” Eliot repeated. 

Hardison just looked at him, bemused. Before he could figure out what to say, Parker made an exasperated noise and reached for the controller in Eliot’s hand.

“Parker,” Eliot said, but she ignored him, fought briefly for the controller, and won. She pressed the button. Eliot scowled, but there was no denying the relief that flickered across his features a moment later. He let out a breath. Parker pressed the button again. He reached for her hand, but she held it up out of his reach, continuing to press the button and making the machine beep. “Parker,” Eliot repeated, letting his arm fall. He blinked heavily. “Stop.” 

“No,” she said. “You don’t need to be in control of everything all the time, Eliot. You got shot. You get to have some morphine and go to the happy place.”

“Parker.” He tried to reach for her hand again, but it was more of a feeble arm-wave. “’s enough,” he slurred.

“Parker.” Hardison reached up and took the controller from her. She frowned at him. “It stops working after it’s given him a certain dose. You don’t need to keep pressing the button.” He set it back on the mattress beside Eliot’s hand.

“Oh.” She frowned. “Why?”

“You want him to overdose?”

“No…” She turned back to Eliot, who had closed his eyes, reached over and slapped his cheek lightly. “Are you still awake?”

“Sort of.”

“Good. Listen. You don’t have to stay in control because we’re here, and we’re watching your back, okay? You’re not alone, Eliot. You don’t have to be on the lookout all the time because we can do it for you when you can’t. And right now you can’t, so we will. Got it?”

He blinked at her a few times, looking like he had to work hard to follow what she had said. “Sure,” he replied after a moment. “Okay.” 

“Good,” Parker repeated. She patted his head. “Now go to sleep. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Okay.” He closed his eyes again. His breath deepened and slowed.

After a few minutes, Hardison reached for the pile of comic books beside the bed. Parker leaned against his back and rested her chin on his shoulder. “So what’re these about?” she asked, as he opened the one on top of the stack. “Why is that guy dressed like a bat? Doesn’t his cape get in the way?”

Hardison laughed and shook his head.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parker, Hardison, and Eliot all have some feelings to sort out.

After a week in the hospital, Eliot wanted nothing in the world so much as privacy and quiet. He wanted to sleep in his own bed, shower in his own bathroom, and work out without a hovering physical therapist telling him he was overdoing it. He wanted to cook something that actually resembled food and eat it sitting at the table on his roof deck with only the faint noise from the street below and the breeze for company. Most of all, he wanted to be _alone_.

And so he was more than a little irritated when Hardison refused to be content with dropping him off in front of his building, insisted on walking him upstairs, and then showed no signs of leaving.

Eliot stood in the middle of the loft with his arms folded across his chest and glared at him for several long moments. If Hardison felt Eliot’s eyes on his back, he didn’t show it; he merely went about making himself at home. He extracted two large bottles of orange soda from his backpack and put them in the fridge, then proceeded to unpack his laptop, external drives, and assorted other components and wires and set them up on the dining table. Eliot’s scowl deepened.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” he finally growled.

Hardison finally glanced up, favoring him with a hard stare. “Humor me. The doctor said someone should stay with you tonight.” He went back to setting up his computer.

Eliot scowled at his back. If Hardison felt his glare, he didn’t show it. After another moment he turned around and waved a hand at him. “Just go about your business. You won’t even know I’m here.”

Eliot’s scowl deepened. A growl rose in his throat. Hardison raised his eyebrows. Eliot forced himself to take a deep breath, threw up his hands, and rolled his eyes. “Whatever,” he muttered. “I’m going to take a shower.” He slammed the door behind him.

He felt a little better once he had washed away the smell of hospital that seemed to cling to his clothes and linger in his hair, enough to ignore Hardison when he emerged from the bathroom in gray sweatpants and a t-shirt.. He felt Hardison’s eyes on him he deposited his dirty clothes in the hamper, then crossed the loft and sat down on the couch. He moved slowly and carefully, holding his arm against his injured side. He let out a quiet breath as he sat down. God, he hated being injured like this; hated how it made him slow, and weak; hated how it made him unable to look out for the rest of his team, and made him into the one who needed looking after. He took another deep breath and let it out, letting his anger drift away. He became aware of the air in the room, the whisper of the ceiling fan, his damp hair on his neck, the pain in his side and chest that waxed and waned with each breath, and let it all slide over him, imagined it as water passing over his cupped hands. Hardison had stopped typing; Eliot could feel his eyes on him. He let that awareness drift over him, too.

Hardison scraped his chair back. His footsteps padded toward the kitchen. A cabinet opened, a glass clinked, water ran from the faucet, and then he crossed the loft to the living area across from the kitchen. Something thunked on the coffee table.

Eliot opened his eyes. He looked up at Hardison, then down to where he had set a glass of water and the bottle of pain pills from the hospital pharmacy. He raised his eyebrows.

Hardison sighed. “This is gonna be like when Parker tore her ACL, isn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“She wouldn’t take her pain pills, either.”

“Are we seriously going to do this again?” Eliot asked. “I told you, I don’t like how they make me feel.” He had conceded to the morphine in the hospital, because he knew he needed to rest in order to heal, but even there he did his best to only take the minimum dose—not that it did him much good when when any of the team were around, no matter how many times he pointed out that patient-controlled analgesic meant it was supposed to be controlled by the _patient_ —but now that he was home, he preferred to keep his head clear.

Hardison looked pained. “Eliot—”

Eliot picked up the pill bottle and turned it so Hardison could see the label. “It says ‘take every four to six hours _as needed_.’ I don’t need ‘em.”

“You can’t possibly expect me to believe you’re not in pain.”

“Of course I’m in pain.” He studied the hacker’s face. “It’s just pain, Hardison,” he said, more gently. “I’m fine.”

Hardison threw his arms up and turned away, pacing back toward the kitchen. “Jesus Christ, Eliot. Fine. You’re fine. You just spent a week in the hospital and you still have a hole in your chest, but you’re just fine. You almost died, but no big deal. What are you gonna do, sit there and meditate?”

“Um.” Eliot turned his head to look after him. “Actually. . .” He trailed off. “That’s how I deal with pain, Hardison,” he said at last. “That’s how I want to handle this. Okay?”

“Yeah,” Hardison muttered. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Sometimes I don’t get you, man.”

Eliot sighed. He wondered if he could find a way to explain that Hardison would understand. Like most people, Hardison feared pain. Eliot didn’t. Eliot knew pain, intimately; pain had made him, honed him. There had been times when pain was the only thing he was sure was real, the only thing that had kept him grounded in reality. Hardison didn’t understand because he thought pain was the enemy, and so he fought it; Eliot knew how to embrace it, to use it, and that made it small. That made it only pain.

He was silent for so long that Hardison shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yeah, whatever,” and began to make his way back to the work station he had set up on the dining table.

“Hardison,” Eliot called after him. He turned, raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t—” Eliot began. “I was just thinking.”

“Don’t strain yourself.”

The jab was halfhearted, and Eliot let it slide. He thought another moment, then said, “Look, you can’t hack without the internet, right?”

“Right. . .” 

Eliot held up the bottle. “I take these, it’s like…taking the internet away.”

Hardison frowned. “I don’t think I follow.”

Eliot gestured. “I can’t do what I do—be who I am—if I’ve got these in my system. It slows me down, I can’t react, I can’t—I can’t keep you safe. I can’t do my job. Take the internet away from you, your hands are tied.” He held up the bottle again, gave it a shake. “These take the internet away from me.”

Hardison licked his lips. After a moment he said, “Okay. I get it. But…” He paced back to the sofa and sat down. “Remember what Parker said, in the hospital? You don’t need to be on your guard all the time.” He gestured. “Not here. You’re home, and we both know the identity you used to buy this place is bulletproof. No one’s coming for you. You’re not on a job. You can relax.”

_You can relax._ Maybe, but relaxing and Percocet were, to Eliot’s mind, of two entirely different orders. He shrugged, a little helplessly. “It’s only pain,” he said.

“Then why is it so important to experience it?” Hardison countered.

Eliot didn’t have a good answer for that. He studied Hardison’s face, determined and anguished, then looked away. He picked up the pill bottle again and held it in his hand, studying it, for a long moment. _It’s only pain._ He opened it, tipped one out, and tossed it back. He drank half the glass of water. “Happy?” he asked.

Hardison made an exasperated noise. He stood up and stalked away. “It’s not about making me _happy_. I just want—” He broke off, bowed his head. “I got you shot,” he continued after a moment, his voice soft. “I just want—I don’t want you to be in pain because of me, okay? I just want you to let me—” He broke off.

“Let you what?”

Hardison shrugged, his back still to Eliot.

“Hardison.”

He sighed. “Just—let me help,” he mumbled.

Eliot stared after him, watched his shoulders tense and relax. _I got you shot._ “Hardison,” he said, his voice gentle. He waited for him to turn back toward him. “C’mere.” Eliot tilted his head, beckoning him. Hardison walked back toward him slowly, sat down again on the couch. “You have to let it go.” Eliot met and held his eyes. “Maybe you made a bad call.” Hardison flinched a little, started to look away, but Eliot reached out and gripped his chin. “Hey. You have to let it go,” he repeated. “Maybe you made a bad call. Maybe I did, runnin’ for it. I decided the risk to the kid was too much if I stayed and tried to fight the guards, and I still think I was right. And _I’m fine_ , Hardison. I’m fine, and we got Danny home safe. That’s what’s important. We did the job, and everyone made it out alive.” He moved his hand to Hardison’s shoulder and squeezed. “Take it from a guy who’s made a lot of bad calls. You have to let it go, or it’ll eat you up.”

Hardison held his gaze for another moment, then looked away. He took a deep breath. “All right,” he said after a moment, his voice a little unsteady. “All right. I’ll try.”

Eliot nodded, patted his shoulder once, and sat back. “That’s all you can do,” he said. After another moment he reached for the TV remote and quirked an eyebrow at him. “I get to pick, right?”

Hardison gestured an assent.

Eliot grinned. “Good. I’ve got _Rudy_ on DVR.”

***

When Hardison left to take Eliot home from the hospital, Parker packed up her climbing gear and went to the top of the Bancorp Tower. She needed to think, and it was always easier to think somewhere up high. With the wind in her face and the city spread out below her, she could take out the events of the past week and try to sort them out.

She had learned the trick of putting her feelings in a box and locking them away at a young age; it had been necessary, to survive in the system; and this week, it had been necessary to be there for Hardison, who’d been so rattled by what happened to Eliot that Parker had locked her own feelings away in order to be strong for him. It was easy; she’d had a lot of practice at it. But this, taking them back out again and looking at them, that was new, and she had to be alone to do it. She took a deep breath and finally let herself remember.

She had reached the rooftop that night just as the sniper got off his third shot, had heard Eliot’s grunt of surprise and pain over her comm a few seconds later. She rushed the sniper and tackled him, knocking the gun away from his hands. The sound of Eliot’s labored breathing was loud in her ear, even over the rest of the team’s voices, and it made her savage. She hauled the sniper’s head back by his hair and wrapped her arm around his throat, squeezing his windpipe in the crook of her elbow. He choked and clutched at her arm. She landed a sharp blow to his kidney with her knee. He made a strangled cry and she squeezed harder to silence him, then jammed her taser into the back of his neck. He convulsed. She got to her feet and gave him a kick in the ribs for good measure. 

“Sniper’s down,” she reported. She pulled her knapsack around and took out her rappelling gear. “Eliot?”

“Yeah.” His voice was faint, raspy. She could still hear him breathing, a thin, wet sound.

She heard Nate say, “Hold on, Eliot, okay?” and then the sound of Eliot’s breathing was gone from her comm.

Parker panicked, her fingers fumbling as she tied off her anchor point. “Eliot?” No response. She heard sirens. “ _Eliot!_ ” She leapt off the roof, hit the ground hard enough to rattle all of her joints, but she barely noticed as she sprinted across the parking lot. “Eliot!”

The ambulance was pulling up when she reached them. Sophie caught her in her arms.

“I can’t hear him!” Parker tried to pull away, to go to Eliot. Sophie held on tighter, and Parker turned at her, eyes wild. “Is he—?”

“It’s okay, Parker, we took his earbud out,” Sophie said, her voice soothing. “That’s why you couldn’t hear him.”

Parker looked back at Eliot. He lay with his head and shoulders supported in Hardison’s lap. His shirt was covered in blood. Nate knelt beside him, holding his jacket to the wound. “Come on, Eliot,” Nate said. “Stay with us. Do you hear me?” Eliot didn’t respond, but he moaned when Nate pressed harder against the wound. There was blood on his lips. 

“Parker, it’s okay,” Sophie said again. “He’s going to be okay.” Parker barely heard. She clung to Sophie and watched as Nate moved out of the way for the paramedics, blinking to clear her vision. She had seen Eliot unconscious before, and she had seen him badly hurt, but not like this. Not bloody and insensible and barely breathing. She thought the bullet had probably gone through his lung. Judging by how fast he had lost consciousness, it was bad. Very bad. 

Sophie finally let her go when they moved him onto a gurney. Parker walked beside it as they wheeled him back to the ambulance, bending so she could speak into his ear. “Eliot.” There was an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, leaving only his eyes fully visible. She found his hand and squeezed it. His hand was warm and limp. “Eliot, you have to hold on, okay?” Her voice wobbled. “You don’t stop fighting. Do you hear me?” She looked up at one of the paramedics. “Can he hear me?” she asked.

He grimaced. “Probably not,” he admitted, then gave her a brief smile that was meant to be reassuring. “We’re doing everything we can for him.”

“Will he be okay?” They reached the ambulance and she stepped back so they could load him in. 

“We’re doing everything we can for him,” he repeated. “The faster we get him to the hospital, the better.”

Parker swallowed hard. She could just see Eliot’s feet inside the ambulance. “You hold on!” she shouted after him, and then the doors slammed shut and the lights siren blared, and he was gone.

The next day and night were a blur in Parker’s memory, an agony of waiting and worrying, and something else, that Parker took out now and looked at for the first time. Another feeling. It was familiar, and that was strange, because Parker and feelings were generally not on a first name basis, but she knew this feeling. She recognized it. It was the same thing she had felt when they worked the funeral home scam back in Boston, when Hardison had been buried alive. It was the feeling of realizing that losing him would be like losing a part of herself, a part that she never wanted to let go. She knew this feeling, though its source was unfamiliar.

She loved Eliot.

She turned this new knowledge over in her mind, trying to make sense of it. She loved Eliot. But she also loved Hardison; that hadn’t gone away. Could she love both of them? Should she tell Hardison? Would he understand? She knew she wasn’t normal, and that was okay, and Hardison didn’t care; but there was normal, and there was normal. Could he live with this? Could Eliot?

Could she keep it to herself?

Parker didn’t think so. She was good at putting things away, but they didn’t stay put away. She was different now; everything was different. She had a family. She had trust that they could work things out, one way or another. Right?

She hoped so, and that was different, too. The old Parker hadn’t had much hope.

It was dusk, the sky turning a rich blue as the sun sank below the horizon. Her phone rang; Hardison’s name flashed on the caller ID. Parker almost didn’t answer, and then when she did, she almost blurted out everything. But before she could, he said, “Hey baby, I need a favor. I’m texting you an address. See what you can find for me?”

Parker let out a breath. “Sure,” she agreed. It would be better to talk about it in person, anyway, though she wanted to talk to Hardison alone first. And she was glad to have something to do to clear her mind before she did. She grabbed her gear and made her way back down to the ground, the wind whipping her hair behind her as she fell.

***

Eliot had nightmares. 

On reflection, Hardison thought, that wasn’t very surprising. He knew Eliot had seen a lot of ugly things—had _done_ a lot of ugly things. He didn’t talk about it, and none of them asked, but there were some things, Hardison thought, that a person could never entirely leave behind.

He didn’t thrash or cry out in his sleep. Hardison might not have even noticed, if he hadn’t been watching him. He had moved over to the armchair so Eliot could stretch out, and had been ignoring the TV while he worked, gathering intel on marks and putting together dossiers on them, his gaze flicking between his computer screen and Eliot’s sleeping form on the couch.

He had spent a lot of time in the last week watching Eliot sleep. Mostly it was for reassurance, because no matter how hard he tried, Hardison couldn’t shake the memory of holding Eliot in his lap in that parking lot while the hitter struggled to breathe: the weight of his body against him, his unfocused eyes, his wheezing gasps, the blood on his lips, the terrifying moment when he had stopped breathing altogether. And then there had been the agonizing hours of waiting while he was in surgery, and the hours after that when they kept Eliot on a ventilator in ICU. They had been able to visit him then, briefly; but the sight of Eliot with a tube down his throat so a machine could breathe for him had unsettled Hardison even more, despite reassurances from his surgeon that everything had gone smoothly, that it was routine to keep him on the ventilator after trauma to his lung, that they would be moving him out of the ICU before very long. It was only after Hardison saw him breathing on his own that he had begun to relax; and he watched Eliot sleep, because that was the only way he could believe that everything would be all right.

He wasn’t sure when the reassurance of watching Eliot sleep had become something else. There was still reassurance, but as he watched him over the top of his laptop screen that afternoon, he acknowledged the other thing, quietly, to himself: Eliot was beautiful. He lay on his back on the couch, one arm tucked under his head, the other draped over his belly, rising and falling with his breath. His hair had dried in irregular waves, one side plastered to his head where he had been laying on it. He was pale, his cheekbones stood out more prominently than usual, and he hadn’t bothered to shave. Hardison couldn’t take his eyes off him.

And so he noticed when Eliot’s body went suddenly rigid with tension. He twitched, and then, with a sharp intake of breath, he was sitting up, his eyes wide. From somewhere, a weapon appeared in his hand, a throwing knife he held by the blade, his hand cocked to let it fly. Hardison sat frozen where he was. Eliot’s eyes traveled slowly around the room. It was then that he realized that the mirrors hanging around the loft were for more than just maximizing the natural light; Eliot could see the whole place from where he sat, without having to do more than turn his head.

At last, Eliot relaxed, and Hardison let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. He watched the knife disappear somewhere near the couch—of course, Eliot would have weapons stashed all over his place—and waited another moment before he asked, “You okay?”

Eliot glanced at him as if he had forgotten he was there. “Yeah,” he replied after a moment. He pushed a hand back through his hair. “Fine. Just a nightmare. It’s nothing.” He levered himself up from the couch and made his way to the kitchen, moving slowly. Hardison followed at a safe distance, and leaned against the counter while Eliot opened the fridge and surveyed its contents.

“That happen often?” Hardison asked.

Eliot shrugged. “Enough.”

“So much for letting things go.”

Eliot turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised.

Hardison grimaced and looked away. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” He took out an onion, carrots, and celery and set them on the counter, then opened the freezer and took out a package of chicken and a large container labeled “chicken stock” in Eliot’s neat, blocky handwriting.

Hardison watched him work. He could have guessed that Eliot would insist on cooking; at least he conceded to his injury enough to pull one of the barstools around the island to perch on while he chopped vegetables, and asked Hardison to get the heavy stock pot down from the rack over the stove. At last, when the block of frozen chicken stock was half-thawed in the pot, Hardison said, his voice low, “I keep dreaming about it.”

Eliot glanced up at him, elbow-deep in a bowl of biscuit dough. He formed a ball with his fingers and set it aside. “What?”

Hardison nodded toward him. “You.” He swallowed hard. “I keep dreaming about you lying in that parking lot, and the ambulance doesn’t get there in time. Every night, since—” He broke off. He had woken in a sweat, with Parker trying to calm him, and most of those nights he had cried in her arms until he slept again.

Eliot kept his eyes on his task. Eventually he said, “It gets better. They stop coming so often.” They were both silent for a few minutes. Hardison got up from his barstool and went to stir the soup on the stove, while Eliot kept rolling dumplings with his fingers, his movements focused and methodical.

“I don’t dream about the past anymore.” Eliot’s voice was so low Hardison almost couldn’t make out his words. He didn’t look at him. “Not very often, anyway. I dream—” He cleared his throat. “I dream I can’t take care of you guys. I’m too slow, or too late, or there’s just too many bad guys, and somebody gets killed. You, or Parker, or Nate, or Sophie.” He shrugged. “You can’t let go of most things completely,” he said. “But you can—enough. So maybe you only dream about it sometimes.”

Hardison looked away, feeling embarrassed. He was never sure of what to say when Eliot revealed something personal. He wanted to reach out, but he knew Eliot was more likely to pull away, and so he remained silent. Eliot didn’t seem to mind; after a few moments he sidled Hardison away to taste the soup, and added more salt. The spoon was halfway to his mouth for another taste when he froze, his head cocked to one side. Hardison frowned. “What?”

“Shh.” Eliot held up a hand. “Listen. Did you hear that?”

Hardison listened. A few seconds later he did hear something, a thump and a yell that sounded like they were coming from downstairs. “What—?” he began, but Eliot was already running for the door. Cursing, Hardison followed him.

***

“You fucking bitch!”

A man’s voice, shrill with rage, followed by the crash of something breaking, sounded clearly through the door of the apartment as Eliot hit the landing. He shouldered the door open hard enough to make it slam into the wall.

The first thing Eliot registered was the gun in the man’s hand. He swung it toward Eliot when the door crashed open, at the same time as the woman standing on the other side of the kitchen island threw a mug at him. It hit him squarely in the temple. He flinched, cursing again, and brought up his free hand to clutch at his head. There was broken crockery all around his feet, and blood already dripped from a cut on one cheek. The woman picked up a tumbler from the dish drainer and held it poised to throw.

Eliot barely paused to take in the scene. He went straight for the gun, catching the man’s wrist in an iron grip and wrenching it free. He removed the clip, emptied the chamber, and tossed both away. The man made an incoherent sound of rage and launched himself in Eliot’s direction. He hit Eliot in the sternum with his shoulder, inches away from the exit wound in his chest. 

The pain was raw and white hot. Stars exploded in Eliot’s vision. He stumbled backward until he hit the wall, the wind knocked out of him. The man pulled away long enough to shift his stance, and then hands were at Eliot’s throat. Eliot gasped, choked. He scrabbled at the man’s fingers for a moment, futilely, then jammed an elbow into the man’s jaw. He drove one foot hard into the man’s shin. The man’s grip loosened, enough for Eliot to jar him loose and trap his arms against his body. A sweep of his leg brought the man to the ground. Eliot caught his wrist as he fell, twisted the man’s arm behind his back and knelt with his knee between his shoulder blades, immobilizing him.

“You hold still,” he ordered. His voice rasped in his throat. He coughed to clear it. The man tried to pull out of his grasp, but Eliot squeezed his wrist and jerked his arm back further, making him cry out. “I said, hold still.”

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ , Eliot! What the fuck?” Hardison stood behind him, breathless, Eliot to the apartment’s resident, still holding the tumbler in her upraised hand. She was petite, with curly brown hair, her expression frightened but determined. Her eyes flicked from Hardison to Eliot to her assailant, now starting to whimper on the floor.

Eliot nodded up to her. “You don’t need that, I’ve got ‘im,” he said. After another moment he added, with a half smile, “Nice arm.”

Her lips twitched in response. She let out a breath Slowly, she lowered her hand and set the tumbler on the counter. “Thanks,” she said.

“I’m Eliot. I live upstairs.” He jerked his head toward Hardison. “This is Hardison.”

“Alec,” Hardison amended, offering her his hand to shake.

“We heard a noise, thought something might be wrong.”

She let out a shaky laugh. “Yeah. That’s the last time I go on a date with someone I met on the internet.” She walked around to the other side of the island and pulled out one of the bar stools. “Kate,” she introduced herself, belatedly. And then, looking Eliot over, “Are you all right? You’re bleeding.”

Eliot glanced down at himself. She was right; there was blood soaking into his t-shirt. He thought he could feel it trickling from the entrance wound in his back, as well, but he ignored it. “It’s nothing,” he said.

“Nothing?” Hardison’s voice rose an octave. “You’re not even home for a whole day, and you have to go charging off and playing goddamn white knight. You coulda been shot! _Again!_ And now I’m going to have to take you back to the hospital—”

“Hardison!” Eliot interrupted. “Concentrate.” He began patting the man down, pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. He handed it up to Hardison, who began rifling through it. “I ain’t goin’ back to the hospital,” he added.

Hardison scowled, but he only grumbled as he sorted through the wallet. “Think you’re fuckin’ superman. And who has to clean up the mess? Who do you think? Me, that’s who.” Eliot sighed. The fight had jarred his injuries, probably ripped a few stitches out, but all things considered, he wasn’t badly off. The rush of adrenaline was still keeping the pain at bay, and had him feeling more alert than he had all week. Normally, Hardison would have listened, and let him take care of himself, but he’d been extra jumpy about Eliot since the sniper. Not, Eliot supposed, that he could blame him, but he didn’t like being fussed over.

Hardison pulled out the man’s driver’s license and read aloud, “Dane Kendall Ness.”

“Dane Kendall Ness,” Eliot repeated. He leaned down so he could look him in the eyes. “That’s a very distinctive name. I wonder what’s going to come up when my friend here runs a background check on you?”

Dane Kendall Ness jerked in Eliot’s grip. Fear flickered across his features. “What are you guys, cops or something?”

Eliot smiled. “Or something,” he said cheerfully. He looked up at Kate. “What do you want to do?”

She blinked. “Do? Shouldn’t we call the police?”

“Well,” Hardison said, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms. “We _can_ call the police. We’ll all give statements, and maybe he’ll go to jail.”

“Maybe?”

“The system doesn’t always work the way it’s supposed to,” Eliot said. “It can take a long time, and things can get—”

“Complicated,” Hardison finished. He had his phone out and was typing away on it. “Ah, here we are,” he said after another moment. He shook his head, tsking as he scrolled through the documents he had turned up. “You’ve been a very bad boy, Mr. Ness,” he said. “Assault, assault with a deadly weapon, rape, attempted rape, armed robbery…” He frowned. “Accused, but never convicted.” He looked down his nose at him. “Why aren’t you in jail?”

Dane spat. “I have a good lawyer.”

“I bet,” Hardison murmured. Eliot squeezed his wrist harder, digging his fingers into the bundle of nerves between the bones. Dane cried out again and tried, without success, to free himself.

“You can’t put me away for this,” Dane said. “Whoever you are. Your case would never stand up.”

“Shut up,” Eliot told him.

Kate was silent for a moment, thinking. Then she asked, “What’s the alternative?”

“Let us take care of him,” Eliot replied.

Her eyes went wide. “Take—”

“Not like that,” Hardison cut in, shooting Eliot a glare. Eliot shrugged. He hadn’t intended to scare her, but he had gotten the reaction he wanted out of Dane, whose face went white. Eliot shot him a nasty smile and put a little more weight into the knee against his back.

“We’ll make sure he gets turned over to the police with enough evidence of his crimes to get him put away,” Hardison was saying. “You don’t have to get involved.” _And neither do we,_ was the unspoken corollary.

“Oh.” She frowned. “Is that, um, you know, legal?”

“Strictly speaking?” Hardison asked, at the same Eliot said, “Do you really want to know?”

She let out a shaky laugh. “Maybe not.”

“Trust us, it’s better this way,” Eliot said. “The system has already let this guy fall through the cracks a few times. We’ll make sure he doesn’t again.”

She looked from him to Hardison and back. “I’m not sure I should trust you,” she said at last, “but I do.”

“You can trust us,” Eliot assured her. “This is what we do.” She raised an eyebrow. Eliot smiled. “Now. Do you have any duct tape?” he asked.

***

They stashed Dane in a storage closet on the first floor of the building, unconscious from a sharp blow to his temple, (“What?” Eliot asked. “I slipped,”) and then stopped to check on Kate on their way back upstairs. She was cleaning up the broken glass and crockery, still looking pale and shaken, but recovering.

“Thanks,” she told them again, setting her broom aside. She gestured to the blood drying on Eliot’s shirt. “You really should get that checked out,” she said.

Eliot made a dismissive gesture. “It’s fine.”

“Don’t even bother,” Hardison said. “He’s impossible.”

“I’m not going back to the fucking hospital, Hardison. I just got the damn smell out of my hair.”

“I know, I know.” Hardison held up his hands in surrender. “If you want to bleed to death, it’s none of my business.” 

Eliot growled. 

Kate chuckled, watching the exchange like a tennis match. “Why don’t you let me take a look?” she suggested. Eliot raised an eyebrow. “I’m a veterinarian, but wound care is wound care,” she said. She pointed to a chair. “Sit,” she told Eliot. To Hardison she said, “There’s a basket of first aid supplies in the hall closet.”

To Hardison’s surprise, Eliot didn’t argue. He took off his shirt and sat, while Kate washed her hands and he retrieved the first aid supplies from the hall. He heard Kate’s sharp intake of breath when she looked up again.

“Jesus,” she said. “When did this happen?”

Eliot grimaced, looking down at himself. “Sunday.” His chest and back were a mass of red and purple bruises, starting to go yellow around the edges. The image was not helped, he supposed, by the fresh blood staining the bandages on his chest and back. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said.

“That’s reassuring,” she murmured, sounding unconvinced. “I’m surprised you’re still mobile.”

Eliot smiled his most charming smile, hoping to reassure her. “Takes more than a few broken ribs to slow me down,” he said.

“So I see.”

Hardison returned with the first aid supplies, and Eliot raised his eyebrows when he placed the basket on the table.

“D’you run a clinic out of your apartment or something?” he asked.

Kate smiled, seeming to relax as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves. “I take in a lot of strays,” she said. She inclined her head to where a fluffy white cat was poking its head out from the bedroom, and quirked an eyebrow at him. “Most of them are animals, though.”

Eliot chuckled. Hardison shook his head. “I’mma go call Parker and see about taking care of our friend downstairs,” he said, and retreated into the hallway.

Eliot sat in silence while Kate carefully removed the dressings from his wounds. The adrenaline was wearing off, and he already hurt enough that he thought he shouldn’t even register the pressure of her fingers, but he couldn’t help wincing as she cleaned away the fresh blood with sterile gauze.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s fine.” He was facing backward in one of her kitchen chairs. He wrapped his hands tightly around the slats and willed himself to breathe deeply and be still.

“Looks like you tore five sutures,” she said, after she had checked both wounds. “Three in front, two in back. I can take care of them.”

“Thanks,” Eliot said. He watched as she opened her suture kit and laid out supplies on a clean paper towel.

“It’s no problem.” She grinned. “It’s the least I can do. You saved my life and everything.” He half smiled in return, shrugging. After a few moments, she ventured, “What’s wrong with the hospital?”

He grimaced. “I hate hospitals, and I just spent a week in one. Not unnecessarily,” he added, his voice softening. “But I’d rather not go back right away.”

“Understandable.” He felt a faint pinch as she injected anesthetic near the wound in his chest, and then his back. “Why do you hate them so much?”

He glanced at her, then away, and shrugged. “I just don’t like ‘em.” It was hard enough to explain to the team. Hospitals meant paperwork. Hospitals meant he was compromised, though that was less of a problem now that he had Hardison managing his aliases. They were a nightmare to secure. And being in the hospital meant a kind of vulnerability that frightened Eliot to his core. It meant he was too badly hurt to take care of himself. It meant being helpless in a building full of strangers without full control even of his own body, without the ability to fight if he needed to. It occurred to him that this was the first time in a long while he had been in the hospital with people he knew and trusted by his side. He’d yearned for home and for privacy—but he’d also appreciated the fact that the whole week he was in the hospital, one of the team was always there. Even when he told them to go home, one of them would insist on staying.

Kate shrugged when he didn’t elaborate. “Fair enough,” she said. “No one likes being in the hospital.”

The cat had emerged from the bedroom while they talked, and now ventured close enough to investigate Eliot with her tail held high. She had splotches of gray on her back and legs, and blue eyes. She sniffed his foot, and then butted her head against his shin. He looked down and chuckled.

She followed his gaze and grinned. “That’s Princess Snowbell.” He raised an eyebrow. “I let my five year old niece name her,” she explained. She cut the thread on the last suture on his back. He shifted his position so she could reach the wound on his chest more easily, pausing to scratch the cat behind the ears.

They were silent for a few minutes, Then Kate said, without looking up at him, “You should give your boyfriend a break. He’s worried about you.”

Eliot blinked. “My—” He broke off, probably more surprised than he should have been at her assumption. “He— We’re— Um. He’s—uh. He’s not my boyfriend,” he finally managed.

“It’s okay.” She kept her eyes on her work. “This is Portland.”

Eliot blinked again, then laughed. “I know it’s okay,” he said. “We’re still not a couple. We’re just friends. We work together,” he added, though both explanations felt woefully inadequate to describe his relationship with Hardison.

“Oh.” She tied off the last suture and cut the thread, her face pink. “Well, you should still give him a break. He obviously cares about you a lot.”

Eliot looked away and didn’t answer.

She taped bandages over both wounds and sat back. Eliot gathered his ruined t-shirt and got to his feet. “You gonna be okay?” he asked. “One of us could come sleep on your couch if you want.”

“I called a friend. She’s on her way over.”

He nodded. At the door, he paused and turned. “Next time you go on a blind date, let me know. I’ll have Hardison check up on him.”

She smiled. “It’s a deal. Go get some rest.”

***

Eliot climbed the stairs back to his loft slowly. Pain had returned with a vengeance; his entire torso was enveloped with a raw ache, and he had to move carefully to avoid pulling at new bruises and stitches. When he got upstairs, Hardison looked up from where he stood in the kitchen, his face pinched with worry. Eliot tensed for another one of his tirades, but all he said was, “Hey. You hungry?”

He was starving. “Yeah.” He pulled himself onto one of the bar stools. He was tired enough to let Hardison finish cooking the chicken and dumplings he had started earlier—not that there was very much left to do—and he was grateful that Hardison didn’t nag him while he ate. When he placed the bottle of painkillers at his elbow, Eliot took one without a word. Hardison pressed his lips together.

“I’m fine,” Eliot responded to his unasked question. He pushed his empty bowl away and sat back. “‘m just tired.”

Hardison’s expression didn’t change as he inclined his head toward the back of the loft. “Go on,” he said. “Go to bed. I’ll clean up.”

Eliot didn’t argue.

He got in bed, but the steady throb of his injuries wouldn’t let him sleep right away. He lay in the dimness of his bedroom alcove and listened to Hardison move around the kitchen, and thought about what Kate had said—what she had assumed. It had flustered him because it hit awfully close to home: Eliot did feel something for Hardison that went beyond friendship, something that he hadn’t let himself examine very closely. Not because he was a man—he hadn’t often wanted to, but Eliot had slept with a handful of men—but because of Parker. Because he would never hurt her, he would never come between the two of them, and because—whatever he felt for Hardison, he felt it for Parker, too. It was true that he felt something deeper than friendship for the whole team: they were family, family that wouldn’t reject him, as his father had, but his feelings toward Parker and Hardison were different. Nate and Sophie were surrogate parents, older siblings. Hardison and Parker were . . . something else. It was confusing, and frightening, and better not to look too closely at whatever it was. 

Even so, as he sank into the warm narcotic haze of the painkillers, Eliot didn’t push the feelings away entirely. Even if he couldn’t think the words that would describe his feelings, he could feel them. Maybe for the first time, he let himself feel them fully.

There was a noise at the door onto his roof deck, and Eliot tensed, trying to push back the fuzziness of the drugs. His hand dropped over the edge of the mattress, finding the knife concealed beneath it. Then he heard Parker’s voice, followed by Hardison’s frantic shushing, and relaxed. Their voices lowered to a murmur, and lying there listening to them, to the soft rustle of their movements, he discovered that it was easy to feel safe with the two of them nearby. It was easy to let go. He opened his eyes, watched them for a few moments, and then he let the painkillers pull him under, and drifted into sleep.

***

Parker breezed through the door from Eliot’s roof deck, her hair wild and cheeks flushed. “Here,” said, pressing a knapsack into Hardison’s hands. “I found a safe with some fake passports and some cash, and I took his laptop. Maybe he keeps a diary or something.” Hardison had set the knapsack aside quickly and was gesturing frantically at her, making shushing noises. She frowned at him. “What?”

He gestured again, toward the darkness at the far side of the loft. “Eliot. Is sleeping,” he finally spit out in a stage whisper. 

She squinted, and finally made out a bed and a lump under the covers that was Eliot. “Oh,” she said; and then, softer, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “How are you?” he asked, looking into her eyes.

Parker pulled away, reminded of what she wanted to talk to him about, and uncomfortable again. “It smells yummy in here,” she said, to cover it, and pulled away from him. She took the lid off the pot on the stove. “Ooh, chicken and dumplings. I’m hungry.”

Hardison didn’t press her. Instead, he handed her a bowl. “Help yourself. It’s good.”

“Of course it’s good.” Parker grinned. “Eliot made it.” Her gaze drifted again to the back of the apartment. She wanted to go see him—wanted, if she was honest, to crawl into bed with him and just lie there and listen to him breathe. But she needed to talk to Hardison first. She took another bite and chewed thoughtfully.

Hardison let her have her silence for a few moments before he asked, “Penny for your thoughts?”

She glanced at him, pressed her lips together, and then blurted. “I’m having—feelings.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Okay,” he said after a moment. “What kind of feelings?”

“Pretzel feelings.” Parker scraped her spoon along the bottom of her bowl and licked it, not looking at him. “About Eliot.”

“Oh.” She felt Hardison shift beside her, heard him sigh. “That’s—” he began, but she cut him off, because she needed to explain.

“And it’s confusing, because I still have those feelings about you, and I don’t want what we have to go away. I love you.” She looked him in the face when she said it, because she wanted him to know she was serious. “But I . . .” She trailed off and gestured helplessly.

“. . . Love. Eliot.” Hardison finished for her.

She nodded miserably and pushed her bowl away so she could bury her face in her arms. “I don’t understand,” she said, her voice muffled. She tried, unsuccessfully, to push back the lump that had risen in her throat.

Hardison laid a hand on her back, warm through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. “Parker,” he said, and waited for her to lift her head. He stood beside her, his arm about her shoulders, and looked down into her eyes. “It’s okay.”

“It is?” She sniffled.

“Yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder, and then back at her. “I, um.” He licked his lips. “I’m sort of having. . . the same feelings.”

She wiped her nose on the back of her wrist. “Really?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.” He stepped away and fidgeted, then turned back to her. “I just—him getting shot, and all. I realized . . .” He trailed off again.

“Yeah,” Parker agreed after a moment. “If we lost him, it would be like—”

“Losing a part of us.”

She nodded. They were silent for a few moments. “Is this weird?” Parker asked.

Hardison looked at her, and then toward the alcove in the back of the apartment. “Maybe.” He shrugged and added, with a hint of a smile. “But weird’s always kinda been our thing.”

She nodded, fidgeted with her spoon. “Will he think it’s weird?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” In his way, Eliot was more normal than any of them. Not, Parker reflected, that that meant very much.

“Maybe not, though?”

“Maybe not,” Hardison agreed. They were silent, and then he added, “I guess we won’t know until we ask him.”

Parker smiled. They were going to ask him.

***

Eliot woke up to the sound of someone eating next to him, and it made him irritable. There was a rustle of a bag and more crunching. He opened his eyes and squinted in the sunlight pouring in through the windows. Parker sat on the bed beside him with a Glenn Reeder spec manual open on her knees, eating dry cereal out of the box. 

When he moved, she turned a radiant smile on him. “Morning, sleepyhead!” She took another handful of cereal and angled the box toward him. “Hungry?”

“No.” He pushed the box away. “Not for that. Parker, stop it, you’re getting crumbs in my bed.”

She just smiled wider and shoved the rest of the handful into her mouth. “How are you feeling?” she asked around it.

He sat up and swung his feet around to the side of the bed, putting his back to her. He winced as the movement pulled at his stitches. “Like I got shot last week and beat up yesterday.” He felt about how he’d expected to feel: a little more sore than he had when he left the hospital the day before, and still tired with the bone-deep fatigue that only came from healing after a serious injury, but neither was so bad he couldn’t manage, and he was tired of being asked how he felt. He took a deep breath to try to calm his annoyance and twisted carefully to each side, testing the extent of his new bruises. “Where’s Hardison?”

“Brew Pub. Said he’ll be back for lunch.”

Eliot grunted. “How ‘bout our friend?”

“Still in the storage closet. I gave him some cereal.” She grinned. “Then I tasered him.”

Eliot laughed, finally unable to resist her infectious cheer. Of course she had.

“I’ve got a meet with McSweeden later.”

“Good. The sooner he’s out of our hair, the better. I take it you found some stuff at his place.”

She grimaced. “Hardison hacked his laptop. He . . . takes pictures.”

He looked around at her. “Do I wanna know what of?”

“No.” Parker closed up the box of cereal and crawled to the foot of the bed, stood, and stretched. She was barefoot, wearing a plaid button-down that hung loosely on her thin frame. Eliot frowned at her, annoyed again. “Is that my shirt?”

“I didn’t bring anything to sleep in.” She looked down at herself. “I like it. Can I keep it?”

“No!” He got to his feet, shoving his hair back with his hands. “ _I_ like that shirt.” He actually didn’t mind Parker having the shirt, but there was an intimacy about it that didn’t feel right to him. He had feelings for Parker that he couldn’t—wouldn’t—pursue, and seeing her standing there in his shirt with her long bare legs. . . He turned away to hide his discomfort, grabbed a clean towel from the armoire and retreated to the bathroom. “Put your own clothes back on!” he yelled over his shoulder, and pulled the door shut behind him.

She was still wearing his it when he came back out, sitting on the foot of his bed with her Glen Reeder manual again. He growled.

“Come on, get dressed.” he said. “Let’s go for a walk. I’m hungry, I don’t have any food here.”

Wordlessly, she held out the cereal box.

“I don’t want cereal. I want real food.” She frowned at him, affronted, and looked affectionately at the brightly-colored box. Eliot rolled his eyes. He found her clothes piled on a chair and tossed them to her, then went to his own closet and pulled on a pair of jeans.

Eliot’s intended destination was only a few blocks away. Parker slowed and looked around at the tents and food trucks that lined the street, deftly weaving through the sudden thick crowd of people that moved among them, and turned a puzzled expression on him. “What’s this?” she asked.

“Farmers’ market.” He raised an eyebrow at her, slowing to a stroll beside her, enjoying the sunshine on his shoulders. It felt good to be out in the fresh air after a week cooped up inside. “Haven’t you ever been to a farmers’ market?”

“No.” She wandered up to a table piled high with dark red and streaked orange heirloom tomatoes. “What are these?” she asked, picking one up.

“It’s a tomato, Parker.”

She held it up to the light. “What? No way.”

“It’s a tomato,” Eliot repeated.

“No. Tomatoes are round and red. Not…brownish and elephant-man shaped.”

Eliot took the tomato and set it back in the pile, and made a note to come back after they had eaten. “I swear, it’s a tomato. An heirloom tomato. They come in different colors.”

“So…it’s someone’s grandma’s tomato?”

“ _No,_ ” he replied, exasperated, as he steered her toward the row of food trucks. “It’s the seeds. They’re the heirlooms They save them and pass them down from year to year. Some of them have histories of—”

Parker interrupted him with a delighted squeak. “Oooh, donuts!” she squeaked, and dashed up the row to the booth.

Eliot laughed, and made his way to a truck with a giant cracked egg painted on it. 

They sat on the curb to eat and then walked back through the market. When Eliot stopped to buy produce and bread and eggs from the vendors, Parker lifted and returned wallets, phones, and jewelry. “I have to stay in practice,” she told Eliot when he scowled at her, and he shook his head.

“Just make sure you give everything back.”

“Everything?”

“ _Everything._ And if you want something, pay for it. These people work hard. No stealing from them, okay?”

“Fine,” she grumbled. “You’re no fun,” he added, and then bumped his shoulder and grinned to let him know she was joking. He smiled back.

Hardison was there when they got back to Eliot’s loft, working at the dining table. Eliot put his purchases away and slid into one of the other seats. He was more tired from the walk than he liked to admit, and Hardison’s worried gaze let him know that it showed in the way he moved. “Don’t,” he said, when Hardison opened his mouth. “I’m fine.” He was tired, and he hurt, but he was fine. It felt good to be home, to be doing normal things.

“Eliot,” Hardison began.

“I just want things to be normal, okay?” Eliot cut him off. “I know you’re worried, Hardison and I—I appreciate it, but I’m tired of being fussed over. I just—I need things to go back to normal. Okay?”

Hardison and Parker exchanged a look. Parker’s voice was small when she said, “You almost died, Eliot. Things can’t go back to normal.”

“That’s _why_ I need things to go back to normal,” Eliot said, bringing his palm down on the table for emphasis. “I know this ain’t easy for you guys, but—” He shook his head. “I get hurt doing what I do, and that’s okay. But something like this, that’s just a reminder that one day I’m gonna get hurt bad enough that I don’t come back from it. One day I’m gonna be too old, or too slow, or too injured to protect you guys, and I gotta live with that, but it ain’t happening yet. So please, just—”

“Eliot,” Hardison cut in, gently. “I think what Parker’s trying to say is—”

“Pretzels,” Parker said suddenly.

Eliot blinked, surprised into stillness. “Pretzels?”

“ _Pretzels,_ ” Hardison agreed, a grin spreading across his face.

Eliot looked blankly at them. “Pretzels?” he asked again.

“We like pretzels,” Parker said. She reached for Hardison’s hand and twined her fingers through his in a way that left no doubt as to what she meant.

Eliot stared at their linked hands. “Okay,” he said cautiously.

“But we also like—um. . .”

“Popcorn,” Hardison suggested.

“Popcorn,” Parker agreed. At Eliot’s baffled expression, she added, “You’re popcorn.”

“I’m—?” Eliot looked from one to the other again, at their linked hands, opened his mouth, closed it again. “I’m— Oh.” There was heat in both of their gazes, and he felt his own rising in response, his heart beginning to beat faster in his chest. “So, you want to—?”

“No,” Hardison said. “I mean, yes,” he amended quickly. “But not just sex. Eliot, this week, you getting shot, it made us realize how we feel. About you.”

“About me.” It seemed all Eliot could do was repeat what they said. He swallowed hard, heat and emotion flooding through him. 

“We love you,” Parker said. “If you don’t feel the same, that’s okay. We’ll just—but we had to tell you. I had to tell you.” She looked at Hardison. He squeezed her hand. “I needed you to know.”

“So did I,” Hardison said.

Eliot looked down at his hands, flat on the table in front of him. He hadn’t been able to name his feelings for Parker and Hardison, not even in his own mind, but this— The word _love_ floated through his mind, and he wondered, _Is that what this is?_ Eliot had been in love before, and it had been different, but then, _he_ had been different. This was strange. What Parker and Hardison were offering was—terrifying, but also, he thought, right. He wanted it, but he hesitated, not sure if he would have the courage to accept.

He looked at the two of them, clutching each other’s hands and watching him hopefully, and then he thought, _Who am I kidding?_ He’d been on the hook for these two almost since the day they met. Well, Parker, at least. Hardison had taken a little longer. He felt his mouth pulling into a smile. “Okay,” he said. 

Parker and Hardison exchanged a glance. “Okay?” Hardison repeated. “Is that it?”

“No.” Eliot’s smile widened. “I’ll make you popcorn. Whenever you want.”

Hardison let out a low laugh. Parker let out a whoop and launched herself across the table on her belly. She wrapped her arms around Eliot’s neck, and then he was lost because she was kissing him, and Hardison was laughing with pleasure behind her, and the whole world narrowed just to those sounds and sensations. Parker slid the rest of the way across the table, took his hand, and tugged him to his feet. He let himself be pulled across the room, and as they drew him down into bed, for the first time in a long time, Eliot felt something like joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What began as a fluffy, ambiguously OT3 piece of h/c fic turned rather unexpectedly into full on angst and introspection first time OT3, because apparently Eliot almost dying equals LOTS OF FEELS. Also, I felt that I really gave Parker short shrift in the first chapter of this story, and so I'm glad I got to give her a little more time here.
> 
> This is also _my_ first time writing OT3. It probably won't be the last. Thanks to all who have read and kudosed and commented; I hope you enjoyed this installment, and would love to hear your thoughts!


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